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lous sore tempest of lightning and thunder with mighty 

 winds and rains as a token and sign of the troubles that 

 after followed. Corn had been dearer if great store had 

 not come out of Almaine, for in France and Normandy 

 it likewise failed; but there came fifty great ships 

 fraught with wheat and barley, meal and bread, out of 

 Dutchland, which greatly relieved the poor, for it was 

 certainly affirmed that in three shires of this realm there 

 was not found so much grain of that year's growth as 

 came over in those fifty ships {Holinshed). 



On the Vigil of the Blessed John the Baptist (June 

 24) a terrible storm of wind accompanied by torrents of 

 rain fell on and raised all the waters of the Severn from 

 Shrewsbury to Bristol to a degree that has not been seen 

 in our times ; owing to which inundation all the meadows 

 and all the cornfields near the Severn were overwhelmed, 

 and the crops utterly destroyed. Some men were even 

 drowned in the violent waters, and innumerable boys and 

 great quantities of animals of every sort. The same 

 summer many thousand men died in London and other 

 parts of England, from being wasted away by famine. 

 And the ripening of the crops was so late in the autumn, 

 owing to the excessive abundance of rain, that in many 

 parts of the kingdom the harvest was not got in before 

 the Feast of All Saints' (M. of W.). 



1259 Wheat, 5^. 9!^. per qr. ; barley, 3*. $\d. ; oats, is. &/.; 

 rye, 2s. (Rogers}. 



This year not very fertile in corn, and very sparing 

 as to its supply of fruit, and, as has often been seen, very 

 unlike and contrary to the preceding year. During this 

 year, and especially in the autumn season, there was such 

 fine weather and a dry time, that, though the crops were 

 thin, they were nevertheless got in in good time, to the 

 farmers' wish. And while a little before the crop had 

 been so great that if it had been all saved there would 

 have been enough for two years, and yet it was all so 



